


Brave the Elements

by Lyrstzha



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Banter, Doctor Who References, Elemental Strangeness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Mythos Building, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, References to Lovecraft, Stealth Crossover, Time Shenanigans, Transuranics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: Perhaps Silver's specialty in fixing broken things is not limited to machines.Or, Silver helps to save different days in different ways.
Relationships: Sapphire & Silver & Steel (S&S), Sapphire/Silver (S&S), Sapphire/Silver/Steel (S&S), Silver/Steel (S&S)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	1. Every Dark Cloud Has a Silver Lining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisbluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I remember there was a ship...” And he did, though in his memory it felt more like a story he'd heard long ago rather than something that had happened to him. He was and was not that Silver.
> 
> Or, Silver is gone; Silver is here.

The first thing Silver saw when he opened his new eyes was Lead – the first and only Lead there had ever been, and therefore an especially calming sight when everything was still settling into place. 

“There you are!” boomed Lead, and scooped Silver up into a thorough hug that left his new feet dangling a bit off of the ground.

“Am I? I suppose I am,” Silver mumbled into Lead's shoulder. He blinked slowly, a bit muddled but adjusting. He knew Lead without question, and also that Lead's hugs always put him in mind of being embraced by a planet: a sense of profound solidity and reassuring gravity. So there was that. And he knew himself, sort of.

“We were starting to wonder,” Jet added, peeking at him from just behind Lead. It was also comfortingly familiar that the directionless, diffuse light of the-place-between was swallowed up by the deep black of her eyes. Silver knew her, too, but also that he had never before met her as she was now. 

“Oh, hello there, Jet,” Silver greeted her, also remembering to hug Lead back at last now that he was recollecting his sociability. “I see you're looking as lovely as always.” She'd been such an elegant, dashing young man the last time he'd seen her, but she was no less stunning for the change. Gems, of course, were always beautiful in any form. But Silver thought that inevitability never took away from the delight of it, or from the pleasure of telling them so. 

She grinned and winked at him. “You've turned out reasonably well yourself, as it happens.”

“Have I?” Silver asked brightly, pleased. “Excellent.” He winked back. “Am I ginger this time? I did try.”

Jet laughed. “Gloriously,” she assured him, with a ruffle of his hair.

Lead put him down and released him with a hearty clap on his shoulder. “Give yourself a moment to settle,” he advised. “That was a hard one.”

Silver frowned thoughtfully at that. “Was it? I remember there was a ship...” And he did, though in his memory it felt more like a story he'd heard long ago rather than something that had happened to him. He was and was not that Silver.

Lead nodded. “That's right, the...ah...”

“ _Mary Celeste_ ,” Jet filled in smoothly.

“Yes, that was it,” Lead agreed. “You and Mercury tried to extract the ship's log at the center of the break, but we lost you both inside it.”

“And I tried to take time back to save you, but the creature attacked me and threw me in after you instead,” Jet sighed. “Emerald sacrificed herself in the end, shattered across the break to stitch it shut before anyone else could get dragged through and destroyed.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Silver reached out to touch her hand, and her new fingers turned to tangle with his. “Was she still able to...?” he trailed off delicately.

“She was.” Jet's fingers tightened hard around his before pulling away, the only acknowledgment that she'd been afraid Emerald would be destroyed beyond regeneration. “She's back out on assignment already with Bronze,” Jet added when Silver looked around with a frown.

“Already?” Silver echoed. His frown deepened. “Why, I _am_ late.”

“About that...” Jet exchanged a meaningful look with Lead.

Silver glanced between them. “What?” he prompted when they seemed reluctant.

“You came back once already,” Lead finally said. “She was such a tiny little thing. This is your third rebirth, not your second.”

“What?” Silver demanded again, even more confused. “I don't remember anything about that.”

“I'm not surprised,” Jet muttered, though she fell silent and looked away when Lead raised an eyebrow at her.

“Steel told Copper to bring you back to the ship as soon as he could. He wanted to replace the ship with a copy, just to be sure.” Lead smiled at him. “And no one else can do that as well as you can; we weren't sure we could manage something so large without you.” 

“Well, of course that's true.” Silver preened a little under the praise but didn't let himself get diverted. “But what happened?”

“You were still sorting yourself out, but Steel was in a hurry to get everything in order. You know how he gets on assignment.”

“Bossy and demanding and cantankerous,” Jet interrupted. “He _is_ ,” she insisted, this time matching Lead's pointed look with one of her own. “I like him as well as you do, but not to work with. Better Sapphire than me.”

“Jet,” Lead chided gently, and she huffed a little. “He drives himself more than anyone. He's always like that, every Steel, every time.”

“That makes it even harder to watch,” Jet shot back, and she turned abruptly and walked a few steps away from them. Silver could see the tension gathered in the graceful lines of her shoulders, and he reflected that she had worked with Steel quite a few times before he'd settled into a regular partnership with Sapphire and she had done the same with Lead.

Lead sighed and turned back to Silver. “In any case, you were still finding your feet, but you tried to make the copy anyway. And you touched a splinter of Emerald left in the scar of the break, and...well. We lost you again, but quite literally this time.”

Silver just stared for a moment. “You mean I'm still trapped somewhere?” He knew such things had happened before, but never to him. It was a more disquieting idea to consider than he'd really been prepared for.

Lead shrugged. “Not exactly. We were told that she tumbled through what was left of the rift and came out whole somewhere else. But she changed on the way, because of the crossing and the shard of Emerald. Enough not to be entirely Silver anymore.”

Silver wasn't sure what to do with that idea either. “So I can be, because she's not,” he offered tentatively.

“Just so,” Lead agreed. “Copper wanted to go after her if he could find a way, but we were ordered to leave it alone. She must have been important to keep wherever she was.”

Silver shook his head. “That is deeply odd. What if parts of me stayed with her and I didn't get them back?” He looked down at himself uncertainly. “How would I know? Which parts are even the innate ones?” He only remembered one other self, after all, which wasn't enough yet to be sure which parts of himself were transient properties of a single incarnation and which were the innate constants.

“Oh, Silver. Only all the best parts,” Lead chuckled fondly and threw an arm around Silver's shoulders to pull him close again. Silver settled against Lead's side and felt better in spite of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was totally an implied reference to the Timeless Child from _Doctor Who_.


	2. Nerves of Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silver probably wouldn't have thought of the whole mess at all if Steel hadn't stiffened and clenched his jaw at the sight of him, rising swiftly from where he was crouched down examining the contents of a storage crate.
> 
> In which Steel is a clenched fist Silver never realized he could coax to open.

The first time Silver met Steel after his return, it was awkward. Honestly, by that time Silver had quite forgotten that it was Steel's urgency that had apparently led to his second self's loss. It had been rather a while, and wasn't as if he remembered her, anyway. Silver probably wouldn't have thought of the whole mess at all if Steel hadn't stiffened and clenched his jaw at the sight of him, rising swiftly from where he was crouched down examining the contents of a storage crate.

“I understand you're having a spot of bother with the Egyptian exhibit,” Silver greeted him pleasantly anyway, with an airy wave toward the wing of the British Museum housing said exhibit. “Perhaps a few replicas to take the places of the problematic artifacts would do the trick. I'll just take a look, shall I?”

“Wait!” Steel snapped sharply, sounding unusually more alarmed than irritable, and quickly stepped forward to seize Silver's arm to stop him in his tracks. But he dropped his hand immediately when Silver startled and turned back to look at him in surprise.

 _Really?_ Silver did not manage to stop himself from thinking. He did not mean it to be pointed, but the twitch in Steel's face suggested that he'd taken it that way.

“Just until Ruby has finished scouting out the rest of that floor,” Steel answered tightly. He met Silver's eyes steadily, but Silver thought that the lift of his chin implied that it was something he was making himself do. “I suspect her spot analysis will reveal that we haven't found all the nasty surprises lying in wait for us yet. This pharaoh had a deal with the darkness.”

“Ah.” Silver blinked at him for a moment and wondered if this might be Steel's version of an apology. He found himself surprisingly touched by the possibility. “Well.” He glanced aside at the work Steel had apparently dropped to talk to him. “Perhaps I can help you with what you're doing here in the meantime. Which is...?”

Steel's posture seemed to lose some of its tension, and he gestured at the storage crates piled around them. “The most notable pieces are already on display on the Egyptian wing. But there are still all these uncatalogued minor pieces. Look for any of the symbols of Pharaoh Nephren-Ka. Inverted ankhs and trapezohedrons, mainly, but of course also any mention of his name that might have escaped erasure by his enemies.”

Silver bent over the crate next to Steel and poked through the shards of a clay tablet. “I gather they didn't make a thorough enough job of it? That will have generated some resentment in whatever's left, surely.”

Steel nodded and settled back down to sort through the crate as well. “Humans,” he agreed in a aggrieved tone that broadly suggested the entire species had a lot to answer for. “They never seem to learn that incompletely repressing the past only makes it more powerful.”

“Mmmm,” Silver hummed thoughtfully, recognizing a rare opportunity when he saw one. He picked up a badly eroded amulet to examine the damaged hieroglyphs on it more closely, carefully making a show of not looking at Steel at all. “But I suppose one can't blame them from wanting to move on from something painful in the past, really,” he remarked, mindful of keeping his voice casual. “On to better things to come and all that.”

He still saw Steel tense slightly out of the corner of his eye and gather his face into a brooding sort of frown. “But until one learns from past mistakes, there can be no better things to come,” he murmured just loudly enough for Silver to hear. “Just more of the same pain.”

Silver considered that for a long moment. “I understand Sapphire is on assignment with Lead and Jet just now,” he finally said, seemingly apropos of nothing.

Steel said nothing at all to that, but Silver thought he might be able to hear Steel's teeth clenching too tightly.

“I haven't met her again yet,” Silver remarked when he was fairly certain Steel wasn't going to answer. “Not since either of us changed. Though of course that's quite recent for her.” He gave it another pause while he dug through remnants of carved stone that had once been pieces of a senet set and reflected wistfully that he would have liked the chance to say goodbye to the former Sapphire. But that chance had never been likely, and he didn't think he should mention it now. “I'm surprised not to find her here with you, actually,” he added lightly instead.

Steel definitely twitched a little and tossed aside some scarabs with distinctly unnecessary force. “She's still adjusting,” he gritted out evenly between his teeth. “It's better for her to settle into herself with them.” The ostracon he'd picked up crushed to tiny shards and powder in his hand with a soft crunching sound.

“I see.” Silver reached over to gently pull at Steel's clenched fingers. 

Steel started slightly, but he didn't pull away; he let Silver coax his fist open instead. The flakes of remaining limestone drifted out of his unfurled hand to patter into the crate below. Silver brushed the last of them off of Steel's palm and then simply let his fingers rest there. He watched Steel stare at their hands, then finally look up at him. Silver thought that there was something too complicated in Steel's eyes for clumsy words to hold it.

 _Perhaps you should ask her where she feels most comfortable while she's settling. Most at home,_ Silver suggested with a gentle, intimate brush of thought.

 _She's better where she is_ , Steel insisted. It felt equal parts of stubborn and miserable to Silver.

 _I suspect she might not think so_ , Silver countered, but he could feel the stab of wordless denial that met this immediately. _Of course I heard what happened_ , he tried instead. _You did everything you could. She wouldn't –_

But Steel cut him off instantly. _You weren't there_. It could have felt like an accusation, but it didn't. His fingers closed almost convulsively around Silver's, but Silver was certain he wasn't aware of it.

_I didn't need to be. I know you. I know her. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. Operators do perilous work._

Steel's gaze dropped. _Not just Operators._ The layers of his grief and guilt were a solid weight in Silver's mind, and the rare gift of trust Steel offered by sharing it was almost as overwhelming. _But the mission is vital and must come first,_ welled up from his thoughts like a mantra, a truth held so firmly that there was no escaping it. That heavy sorrow was even deeper for its certainty.

Silver brought his other hand up to cradle the back of Steel's; he saw Steel's eyes widen and snap to their hands with sudden awareness. Immediately, Steel's crushing grasp on his fingers eased into a lighter hold, but he still didn't pull away. _I know_ , Silver offered gently, and let it feel like the forgiveness he hadn't realized he needed to grant. The moment drew out between them, and Silver delicately brushed his thumb back and forth across Steel's knuckles.

 _I hesitate to interrupt you two – and also, hello, Silver – but these canopic jars seem to be siphoning time off of anyone that comes within two meters of them. I've just lost 2.7 minutes. Cumulatively, museum visitors must be feeding them quite a lot of time. But I haven't worked out where it's all going yet_ , Ruby broke in briskly.

Steel's head came up immediately, and his expression sharpened. _Take time back 2.7 minutes, Ruby. Trace the time as it's drained from you again so you can see where it goes._

 _Why yes, thank you,_ she retorted sardonically. _I surely would never have thought of that myself and already tried it, like a competent Operator._

 _Ruby_ , snapped Steel, in very much the sort of tone he usually used with Silver.

She didn't feel in the least chastened to Silver. _It didn't work. I can't take time back at all while I'm inside their field of influence. There's some sort of device inside the lids, I think. Silver, you should come and take a look. You're much better with these mechanical things than I am._

 _Of course. I'll be right up_ , Silver answered. _Best to touch nothing and step away from them in the meantime,_ he teased her back on Steel's behalf, certain she'd already had the good sense to do so. All he got back was a flicker of derisive amusement, so that was indeed a safe bet.

Steel's eyes found Silver's again and held. Then he quickly rose to his feet, pulling Silver up with him by their still-joined hands. Steel briskly leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to the back of Silver's hand, brief but fierce, before letting him go. “I'll come with you,” he said.

Silver smiled at him and refrained from comment when Steel edged ahead of him as they reached the stairs, stalwartly staying between him and the shadows that deepened there.

Much later – after Silver had replaced all the shattered artifacts with replicas and the mummy had been safely drained of its stolen time and sent back into the sleep of death, and after Steel had gotten exasperated enough with both of the others to snap at each of them at least half a dozen times, though he still kept standing between Silver and the darkness while he shouted – Silver sighed with relief and leaned against Steel's shoulder to let the remains of the deadly time-leaching devices fall from his hands, safely transmuted into glittering silver dust.

Together they watched the dust swirl and sparkle in the early morning light until it settled onto the floor. In the next room, they could hear Ruby singing a song of sleep, the notes echoing high and clear.

“I suppose you're good for something after all,” Steel murmured softly, with a sidelong glance at Silver from the corner of his eye. 

“All right, all right,” Silver laughed. “I love you, too,” he told Steel, and thought it wise to disappear before he could reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pharaoh Nephren-ka, who made a deal with the old gods from outer darkness, is from H.P Lovecraft's _The Outsider_.


	3. Hold Your Sapphire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapphire has changed, except in all the ways she hasn't, all the ways that matter most. Silver would know her anywhere.

“Silver!” exclaimed Sapphire, turning to him with a warm smile as Silver heralded his presence by redirecting the surveillance cameras before they could precipitate an inconvenient response. “I expected a Specialist, but I would have thought we'd be getting Mercury.” She flicked a telling glance at Copper, who was glowering thunderously in the direction of the electrified security doors and pointedly not looking at Silver. 

Silver waved this away airily and let his hand settle on her shoulder. “As if I would let him steal my chance to see you!” He smiled back at her and savored her loveliness. Even as gems went, she was especially radiant by any measure – though Silver allowed that he might be slightly biased. “And may I say, my dear, it is positively _shocking_ that we have not seen each other since our respective changes until now.”

Her smile widened and curled a little archly. “Yours suits you. I do so like the hair.” She reached up to trail her fingers idly through his forelock and down the side of face. The soft rasp of her fingernails against the line of his jaw was exquisite, and he leaned slightly into it with open pleasure. He thoroughly ignored Copper's increasingly aggressive silence with the ease of practice.

“Not as well as yours suits _you_ ,” Silver insisted. “You shine brighter than ever. In fact, I think –”

 _If the two of you are quite done wasting time on trivialities, do you think we might attend to this break before it consumes us all?_ Copper's angry snap raked lightly across Silver's thoughts, sharp but shallow. It had been quite some time since he'd reached out for Silver any deeper than the surface.

In retaliation, Silver aimed an insouciant smirk at Copper, who was still pretending not to be watching, and let out a light laugh. _Admiring the radiance of our dear Sapphire is never a waste,_ he tossed back lightly. _And really, we were rather waiting for you to open the doors for us. Whenever you're ready._

Copper slammed a hand against the doors with entirely unnecessary force, and electricity arced dazzlingly between the lock-plates of both doors. There was a distinct sizzling sound and a puff of acrid smoke swirled in the brisk German winter wind before the doors clicked open, burns visible around the sides. The wires that had electrified both doors continued to spark slightly. Copper stormed through the doors and into the descending tunnel beyond without a word.

 _Ah, got them at last! Well done. I knew you could do it if you put your mind to it. Eventually._ Silver let trickles of condescension swirl lazily around the thought, his grin widening in satisfaction when all he got back was an icy snarl.

Silver turned back to Sapphire and gave a small, courtly bow. “Shall we?” Teeth glinted in her smile, and Silver was glad to see her rebirth hadn't stolen her amusement at his inclination to be provoking when it was called for.

Sapphire chuckled a little and accepted the arm he offered her, tucking her hand comfortably into the crook of his elbow. “By all means,” she said, falling easily into step with Silver. Then she added more seriously, “The barrier is thin everywhere here, and we shouldn't really let him wander off alone too far.”

“Yes, I noticed.” Silver nodded at the fuel tanks lining the nearest wall as they proceeded through the scorched security doors, down the tunnel, and into the cavernous and dimly-lit space beyond. “As if burning the long-dead for fuel were ever a good idea with no consequences.”

Sapphire hummed her agreement, but then narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “That would be unstable at any time, of course, but this seems more than that. Do you smell that?”

Silver cocked his head and frowned. “Ash and ozone? And burning kerosene. That combination suggests –”

A high-pitched scream rent the air, followed by a trumpeting roar and a leathery rustle above. Silver and Sapphire looked up as a pteranodon wheeled overhead.

Sapphire's eyes took on a glow. “Organic tissues. Bones and blood. A living, breathing animal. _Pteranodon longiceps_ , species belonging to genus pterosaur, which lived during the late Cretaceous period, specifically the late Coniacian to early Campanian stages. It had a wingspan of over 7 meters and a diet consisting primarily of fish. It should have died out 84.5 million years ago,” she murmured in an abstracted voice.

The pteranodon angled its wings and dove, snatching up a man in a grey-green wool uniform who was running towards the potential safety of a door in the far wall. The man's panicked scream cut short as the pteranodon gave him a vicious shake, as a terrier might do with a rat.

“Possibly not just fish anymore,” Silver corrected, glancing around for other survivors and seeing instead a suspiciously tail-shaped flicker of motion disappearing around the corner of some scaffolding. “Well, I hadn't meant to say 'dinosaurs.' I was _going_ to say 'the detonation of rocket fuel powered missiles.'”

Sapphire's hand around his elbow squeezed tightly. “Of course!” she whispered urgently. _Petroleum-based fuel in an instrument of mass murder. Old death being used to power new death. The missiles themselves must be powering the break._

 _They are_ , agreed Copper grimly. _And the appalling stupidity doesn't end there. I expect the slave labor being worked to death to build those missiles exacerbated the problem considerably._

 _Layers of suffering and death, echoing across time and collapsing everything that stands between them._ Sapphire's macabre diagnosis rippled with her revulsion. _Where are you, Copper?_

 _In a side tunnel to your left with the remaining workers. I'm going to block them off safely in here and send them up the tunnel. There's an exit through an abandoned gypsum mine they can take._ There was a rough, brusque feel to his thought that gave Silver a wistful pang. As difficult as Copper could be in his anger, there was always so much awkward kindness beneath it. There had been a time when Silver had gotten to see that so much more often.

In any case, neither Sapphire nor Silver objected that freeing the prisoners was not supposed to be part of their mission here. Instead, they watched another uniformed man attempt to scurry around the corner of scaffolding and away from the pteranodon, only to run headlong into the spring of a velociraptor. Silver winced at the gruesome gurgling sound the man's scream made as tearing claws let it out of his chest instead of his throat.

 _Good thinking, Copper_ , Silver agreed. _And I don't think the guards are going to give us any trouble. They do seem to be creating an excellent diversion, though_.

 _Can you sabotage the missiles, Silver?_ But Copper's tone made it an order rather than a question. _I think that should disrupt the echoes and seal the breach._

_Of course. I'll need a little time to get to each of them._

_I'll go with him_ , Sapphire volunteered. _I'll make sure he can work in peace. What about you, Copper?_

_I'm going to see if I can't drive our reptilian friends back through the breach before you close it. Like herding especially sharp and angry sheep._

“He's going to take his frustrations out by wrestling dinosaurs, he means,” Silver grumbled to Sapphire aloud with a sigh, and pretended not to find it a little endearing.

And every time Silver caught sight of Copper over the next hour or so, in between fiddling with missiles, that looked like an apt prediction. Aside from the creatures Sapphire trapped in time loops or paralysis to keep them from bothering Silver while he worked, Copper appeared to be wrangling the rest with savage zeal.

“I'd help him, but he seems to be almost enjoying this part,” Sapphire remarked, watching Copper pin another velociraptor down with an agile flip of his leg over its back.

Silver briefly glanced up from the missile he was working on. “Yes, I rather think he is. He'll be easier to work with afterward, I expect.”

Silver could feel Sapphire eyeing him speculatively. “He's not so difficult to work with, generally,” she said, and let that sit for a moment. “Silver,” she prodded eventually. “Everyone knows there have been problems.”

Silver made a noncommittal sort of hum. He thought about how to say it while his fingers unwove the web of death. “I can already tell you're still the Sapphire I know and love by every measure that matters most,” he finally said. “Every first time I've met you, I've always known you. Now that I've changed, do you recognize me the same way?”

Sapphire's hand appeared on his arm, stroking lightly. “Of course I do.”

Silver spared a hand from his work to press it over hers in thanks. As much as he'd expected her answer, he hadn't quite expected to feel a sharp pang of relief at the confirmation. “But it isn't that way for Copper,” he said simply. “I'm not his Silver. Not quite.”

“Ah, Silver.” Sapphire's head leaned against his shoulder gently at that, and her other hand cupped the nape of his neck beneath the fall of his hair. Her fingers lightly kneaded at the tendons beneath his ears. “I'm sorry,” she murmured, so close to his ear that he could feel the warm puff of her words like an extra caress. “It happens like that sometimes. You remember how Bronze and I were in the beginning. I'll always be fond of her, but we simply didn't fit the same way after we changed. When you've been through more than twice, you'll know what's yours to keep, even if you hold it more tightly in some incarnations than others.” Her voice dropped even quieter, so soft he almost couldn't hear her. “Though even then, sometimes you'll still be surprised.”

Once again sensing an opportunity, Silver picked his way as delicately through responses as he did through the tangle of wires in his hands. He wanted to get this right, though Sapphire was less of a minefield to navigate than Steel, really. It would have been so much easier if Steel had simply taken his advice already, but apparently this problem needed to be worked from more than one side. “All of this mechanized mass death,” he tried, nodding his chin at the missile he worked on. “It's so strange when you think about it. You'd think this would come from hate, but it doesn't, does it?”

From the corner of his eye, Silver could see Sapphire blink. “No,” she said slowly. “Abject terror turned outward as a destructive force.”

Silver nodded. “Lashing out in fear makes humans feel stronger, no matter how many times that fire burns them. They think they can protect the things they love by destroying them.” He paused. “Not just humans,” he added softly.

Silver felt more than saw Sapphire glancing at Copper, which hadn't really been what he meant. Silver understood Copper's anger to be born of frustrated grief instead.

“I did ask Mercury to let me take this assignment so I could see you,” Silver confessed. “I worked with Steel not long ago, and I expected to see you with him. But there he was with Ruby, and here you are with Copper.”

Sapphire tensed against his shoulder. “So we are,” she agreed too evenly. “So he preferred.”

“He really doesn't,” Silver argued immediately. “He's not that kind of an idiot.”

“No?”

“No,” Silver insisted. “He's the kind of idiot who will build missiles if you let him. So to speak.”

That surprised a small breath of a laugh from her. “Oh, no, is _that_ what it is? I thought he...” She trailed off. “I thought it was my mistake, that last time. You know how much of a perfectionist he is.”

Silver managed to roll his eyes without loosing track of the skeins of cabling unspooling from his fingers. “Oh, I do know. But that isn't why. He just has so very much to lose, and the reminder that he can't always keep from losing it is terrifying.” He briefly leaned to the side to press his cheek against the top of Sapphire's head. “It's the first time you were lost since you took up together, after all.”

“Thank you, Silver. I should have thought of it like that.” Sapphire stretched up to brush a kiss across his cheek. It tingled across his skin delightfully.

Silver chuckled. “Well, I _do_ have more experience divining the workings of machines, after all...”

She laughed too, and the fond amusement reflected back and forth between them, a much better echo than the death and suffering that reverberated through time around them.

Much later – after Silver had rigged all the missiles to explode in the air when fired, neatly short-circuiting the chain of death – Copper gave him a stiff, acknowledging nod that looked like it hurt him before leaving without a word.

Sapphire sighed and Silver shrugged at her. “Perhaps he'll have better luck next Silver,” he said lightly, and found that it stung less now than it had before.

The corner of Sapphire's mouth quirked up and she leaned in, almost into a kiss. “I feel rather lucky with this one,” she breathed across his lips. She did not fade like the Cheshire cat, grin last, but it _felt_ like she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set in one of the German WWII V-2 missile manufacturing facilities, which employed slave labor from nearby concentration camps. While there is, of course, no record of a facility being overrun by dinosaurs while all the prisoners escaped, there _is_ a record of a mysterious "air-burst" problem that caused many of the rockets to explode in the air soon after launch.


	4. The Element of Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There will be other Sapphires and other Steels, and Silver will love them and lose them all. But knowing the truth of that grief doesn't mean he's willing to lose them without a fight.

Silver stumbled as he appeared in the-place-between, thoroughly disoriented and distressed. He'd managed to throw himself clear when the time fields had fired together, in the moment of tension between them when the imprisoning time loop had wobbled. But Steel and Sapphire had been more directly in the grip of the engaging fields, hadn't they?

“Silver?” Lead gently touched his shoulder, and Silver startled badly and spun to face him with wide eyes. Lead actually took a step back, hands raised. “Silver? Silver, what's wrong?”

 _Everything_ was wrong, and he wasn't even sure what had happened, exactly. “I lost them,” he started with the worst of it. “Sapphire and Steel both. There were Transient Beings, and this human woman from the past, and it was all some sort of a _trap_ ,” tumbled out of him in a rush. “But not for me,” he added, strangely bitterly.

Lead stared at him incredulously. “Transient Beings?! Silver, you're making no sense. Start from the beginning.”

And he did, but the more Silver explained what had happened, the more confusing much of it became. “But why was I there? And six hours early, at that?” he demanded when he'd floundered through the whole mess as best he could. “If they didn't want to trap me too, why lure me there at all?” 

Lead frowned thoughtfully. “Your presence must have been important to their goals. Think, Silver. What was different because you were there? Was it only the replications and extracting the machines from the woman?”

Silver tilted his head, as if the change in angle would give him a different perspective on his memories. “Yes. There's nothing else I can think of that Sapphire and Steel wouldn't have done just the same on their own.”

Lead nodded decisively. “Then it must be one or both of those. Why would they need those things to happen?”

Silver threw up his hands. “As for the woman, I still don't know how she fits, so I have no idea on that score. But the time devices...” He trailed off, lost in untangling the beginnings of an idea.

“The time devices?” Lead prompted him.

“I think...” Silver bit his lip. “I think two identical devices, on opposite settings, deployed simultaneously against each other – I think they'd cancel each other out. I think instead of shifting time or space, they'd _extract_ time and space. Make a sealed pocket of it, do you see? An inescapable trap.”

“Yes, that could be,” Lead agreed. “But they'd have to have planned for you to make another. And for you to give it to Steel as you did, and for him to fire it at their leader at just that moment. That's very precise planning.”

Silver hissed through his teeth in belated exasperation. “No wonder they kept us confused and busy with so many surprises! We never had time to think properly. We barely even had time to talk about what I was doing there! Of course Steel set off the device when he did. The leader had Sapphire hostage, and we thought it was the only defense we had against him. Anyone who knows anything about him would have been able to predict he'd do that, once I'd given him the means.”

Lead gave a sort of bass growl, so deep that it was more vibration than sound. “It isn't your fault, Silver,” he insisted, responding to what Silver had meant rather than what he'd said. His broad hands closed on Silver's shaking shoulders firmly, grounding him.

Silver's chin dropped to his chest. “But if I'm right...they couldn't have done it without me,” he mumbled. “I let them use me as a weapon. I failed Sapphire and Steel.”

“You couldn't have known,” Lead countered. “You did your best to help. There's nothing else you could have done.”

“There must have been _something_. Something wiser, faster, stronger. There must be something I can do _now_ ,” Silver insisted miserably, letting his bowed head rest lightly against the comforting solidity of Lead's chest. Not that he thought he deserved that comfort.

Lead's hands on his shoulders slid around onto his back and stroked soothing circles between Silver's shoulderblades. “There is,” he soothed softly. “You can be here for them when they return.”

“No!” Silver pushed away from him sharply, staggering back a few steps. He felt unbalanced, unmoored. “That can't be all there is.”

Lead sighed, his empty hands dropping back to his sides. “But it is,” he said gently. “If they're trapped out of this dimension, they'll be regenerated soon. You know that.” Silver thought his voice was heavy with the exhaustion of all his many years of waiting here for new faces of old friends, and Silver couldn't bear the thought of taking that weight himself.

“Not if I can get them out,” Silver argued stubbornly. “Not if I can save them.”

“You can't break into an isolated pocket of space-time, Silver. How would you even _find_ it? How would you get there?”

Silver drew in a sharp breath as inspiration struck. “The woman,” he gasped. “Maybe I can't find the trap, but I know where and when to look for _her_. I just need to get to 1948, or a little before. Do you know any breaks that connect there?” he demanded fiercely.

“Silver!” Lead exclaimed, looking scandalized. “You can't just use a break like that. That's everything we're working to prevent!”

Silver's jaw set mulishly. “Do you know a break I can use, or don't you?”

“Silver, don't,” Lead urged him earnestly. “Even if you could get there, even if you could save them, it will never be forever. You _will_ lose them sooner or later. Over and over. And unless the worst happens, you will get them back. Let that be enough.”

It was Silver who reached out then, hearing the echo of old scars in Lead's voice, pain that must have settled so deep it had become part of him. He gathered up Lead's hands in his own and held them tightly. “I know you're right,” he said softly. “There will be other Sapphires and other Steels. I'm going to lose them both, again and again. And I will love every one of them, and I will mourn them every time.” He squeezed Lead's hands even tighter. “But _this_ Sapphire and _this_ Steel are mine. And I'm not going to let them go if there's any other way. Any other way at all,” he vowed.

Lead sighed again and squeezed back. “It's forbidden,” he reminded Silver with a shake of his head. “ _But_ ,” he said firmly, cutting Silver off as he opened his mouth to argue. “There's no break open right now that will take you there. If you _are_ going to do this, you're going to have to make the break you need yourself.” 

__Silver's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “In for a penny? I hadn't even thought of that.”_ _

__Lead's lips twitched in faint amusement. “If anyone asks, yes you did.”_ _

__Silver gave him a watery smile. “I absolutely did,” he agreed obediently. “All I need are some appropriate artifacts from the right time period, the right setting in that cafe or whatever is there now, and...oh, what? I haven't got the same sort of leverage to use as time creatures have.”_ _

“Hmm.” Lead's eyes narrowed consideringly, but then his face cleared. “No. You'd need a strong, chaotic power source. Something _unstable_ ,” he said meaningfully. 

__“Oh,” Silver said faintly. “Oh dear.”_ _

__

__The glaring kaleidoscope smear of colors that marked the Transuranics' place-between made Silver dizzy. He thought that if vertigo were represented as color, it would look just like this. The first Transuranic he found was even harder to bear, though._ _

__“Nihonium,” Silver greeted politely with a nod, doing his best to meet their eyes. It was always difficult to look at Transuranics directly, but moreso those with the shortest half-lives._ _

__“Silver,” replied Nihonium, their voice beginning in alto and scaling down to bass by the end of the word as the mouth that formed it shifted into another. “You never come here.” Nihonium's heart-shaped face melted into a wide moon._ _

__Silver decided to take that as a question, though it hadn't sounded like one. “Not usually, no. But I need your help. Sapphire and Steel are trapped, and I need to do something to rescue them.” Silver couldn't see any point to working up to what he wanted gently, so he forged briskly ahead. “I need a Transuranic to power an intentional time break. Of course I know it's forbidden,” he hastened to add, “but I'm asking anyway. I have to try.”_ _

__Nihonium regarded him expressionlessly, monolids becoming sloe eyes becoming hooded eyes. There was a strange sort of whirling quality to their irises, as if they were pools that were draining out from below. “Sapphire has always been kind,” they said, through wide lips that dwindled thin. “She has always counted us as equals. Comrades. Not all of you do.”_ _

__“Ah.” Silver thought that sounded vaguely promising, though it was always hard to tell with Transuranics. “Is that a yes, then?”_ _

__Nihonium blinked at him, slow and thoughtful. “Yes,” they finally answered simply, and Silver almost collapsed with relief._ _

__“I wasn't sure I could persuade you, not with something like this,” he blurted before he could think better of it, then wanted to kick himself. He should have the good sense not to press his luck._ _

__“We don't understand the value of a single facet as you do,” Nihonium said. “But no one could ever understand the importance of anchors better than we do, who have so few constants.”_ _

Silver frowned a little, grateful but not really sure he understood. But he thought that was probably the point. He shrugged it off. “1948 it is, then. I've snagged this first edition of _The White Goddess_ printed that year, which might just do the trick to get us back to before that woman went off with her Transient Being in the first place. And we'll need someplace where there's no life, obviously. I just need to see a woman about a box,” he said lightly, as if it were really going to be just that easy. 

__

__But in the end, Silver had less trouble finding a good spot for Nihonium to focus on safely than he'd feared. They stepped through the break, leaving the tumbled, jagged rocks of the Dallol geothermal field in Ethiopia for rocks that looked more or less the same, in spite of being decades younger. Though the sun was otherwise shining brightly off of the hyperacidic pools, the shadows did not quite lie as they should. Silver grimaced, though he really had no one to blame but himself, and he wouldn't take it back if he could._ _

__“We'll have to worry about it later,” he muttered, mostly to himself. More loudly he added, “Thank you. Can you keep this break open? I'll be back as soon as I can.”_ _

__Nihonium shrugged philosophically with broad shoulders that had narrowed dramatically by the time they dropped. “We have never created a break before, so we cannot say for sure. But we'll try.”_ _

__“I'll hurry,” Silver promised, and vanished before the last syllable had quite left his mouth._ _

__The woman was also easier to find than he'd feared. He'd worried she'd lied about being local to the cafe, but there she was, sipping coffee and staring broodingly out of the window. Silver dropped into the seat opposite her without hesitation._ _

__“Hello,” he said brightly._ _

__She turned toward him with a hard glare. “No,” she said firmly. “I'm not buying anything you're selling, and I'm not looking for company.”_ _

__“I didn't ask for either,” Silver retorted, his teeth bared in what might have looked like a smile from far away. People at the nearby tables were starting to stare, and he could not care at all. “I'm looking for information. For a reason why an apparently normal woman would throw in her lot with an ancient creature bent on destroying the forces protecting this dimension.”_ _

Her face blanked for a moment in shock, then twisted up in bitter rage. “You're one of _them_ ,” she hissed. “An _element_.” She pronounced it like it was the filthiest epithet she could imagine. 

__Silver couldn't see any reason not to admit it at this point. He nodded briskly. “Yes. And I expect the reason you know that must have something to do with why I'm here. You've encountered us before?”_ _

She drew as far back in her seat as the chair would allow, as if he were something foul. “ _Encountered_ ,” she sneered. “If that's what you call it when you take a child from her home, let monsters swallow up her family, and then abandon her in the village square without so much as a goodbye.” 

“Ah _ha_.” Silver whistled a breath in through his teeth, instantly understanding her anger. He supposed he should be sorry for her, and he probably would be, someday. But not until he'd gotten what he needed from her. “That is actually somewhat helpful.” 

“It wasn't _meant_ to be helpf–” She cut off abruptly as Silver froze her ruthlessly. Her eyes went positively murderous, though. 

__“If need be, you're coming with me,” Silver told her. “And I promise you, you'd rather not. It would be easier for both of us if we could part ways here. All I need from you is something your inhuman friend gave you.”_ _

__Her gaze flickered, though she pulled it back quickly. Silver followed the direction of it to her purse on the chair beside her._ _

__“In here?” he asked, watching her pulse twitching in her throat like a wild thing trying to escape her skin. He reached for the purse and peered inside, immediately knowing what he was looking for when his fingers glanced across it. The roiling sense of wrongness was unmistakable, like touching the time device boxes had been. He drew out a simple handkerchief, blandly white and unremarkable to the eye. He looked from it to her and back again. It was an object with no origin, a cipher which took up space._ _

__“This might work,” he told the woman as he rose to leave. “But I'll be back if it doesn't.” He meant it to sound like the threat that it was. Her furious eyes followed him out the door, and he could still feel the heat of them as he disappeared._ _

__“Can you use this?” Silver asked Nihonium as he stepped back into Dallol. “It was made by one of the Transient Beings.”_ _

__Nihonium took it gingerly in a long-short-stubby-skeletal fingered hand and considered it closely. “If the Being was in the trap but departed it, then perhaps the way he left still bears his traces. This might open his exit. Possibly.”_ _

__“Please,” Silver begged simply, choking on anything else he might have said._ _

__“You must be quick,” Nihonium warned, and pressed the cloth to their chest. The break beside them shivered abruptly, rippling with darkness._ _

Springing to the edge of that abyss, Silver thrust his hands through. _Sapphire!_ Silver called desperately into the darkness. _Steel!_

_Silver?!_ came faintly back to him, a giddy tangle of both of them chorusing together in shock. 

_Yes, I'm here!_ Silver stretched even further, precariously balanced halfway between darkness and light. _Follow me out._

Four hands seized his, wrapping tightly around him, and Silver clung to them as hard as he could. He slid a little further into darkness, but he did not let them go. Instead, he heaved against the very laws of the universe. 

With a breathless cry he would forever deny had sounded anything like a sob, Silver wrenched back one step, then two, then stumbled free all at once, his Sapphire and Steel tumbling through to crash into him. The break shuddered closed behind them. 

_Silver_ , Sapphire thought wonderingly, and curled around him in a tight embrace. _You came._

_Of course I did, you must know I always would, only really I couldn't have done it without Nihonium, and Lead helped too, but let's keep that to ourselves, and that woman didn't want to be any help, but she was anyway, and, and..._ Silver's mind bubbled euphorically with relief, and his thoughts babbled haphazardly in a jumble. 

Steel's strong arms closed around them both firmly. _All right, all right_ , he soothed, pressing against Silver inside and out until he calmed into quiet. 

__“We love you, too,” he whispered softly into Silver's ear, and stayed just exactly where he was._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dallol geothermal field in Ethiopia is reported to be the one site on earth where no life exists, not even at the microbial level.
> 
> Nihonium, atomic number 113, is extremely radioactive. The half-lives of its known isotopes range from 1.4 milliseconds to 9.5 seconds. Mostly because of this rapid decay, very little is known about nihonium. However, it is theorized to be a post-transition metal which in certain states behaves a lot like silver.


End file.
